BBKA Forum

British Beekeepers Association Official Forum 

  • splits which way and why?

  • Beginners forum, ask beekeeping related questions and get help from other experienced beekeepers. Please use the Search Feature please to avoid duplicated threads
Beginners forum, ask beekeeping related questions and get help from other experienced beekeepers. Please use the Search Feature please to avoid duplicated threads
 #10264  by Bobbysbees
 16 Mar 2021, 22:48
Iv seen dozens of different ways of splitting hives from stupidly complicated snelgrove 4 way door splits to walk away ones.
I have one hive that was exceptional last year and still is. They are very hygienic to an ocd level and got a great crop of honey out of them. You could work them in shorts and tshirt if it took your fancy. So i really want to breed from her.
My other hive is less pleasant to work.... yes its one of those. lol
So I figure on requeening that one one way or the other this year.
My main worry is diversity is the key to good genetics. So having 3 or 4 hives of a given lines daughters in a small yard may not be a wise move.
I bought a very very cheep notnicot set and figured on giving it a try possibly even using grafting rather than the little queen cage laying cup section. I considered just doing a walk away spilt and maybe saving a few of the better queen cells and dropping them in my little quadratics to mate then building them up into nucs.
Any advice for a newbee would be gladly accepted.
 #10266  by Patrick
 17 Mar 2021, 14:11
Quite a few things there with different splits, queen rearing (and introduction).

I would decide at the outset what it is you are really trying to achieve. That will inform how many queens you need. That in turn will inform which method is proportionate to achieving your outcome. For example, the kit and trouble involved in grafting or Nicot system would seem disproportionate to the aim of simply requeening another single hive. If you want to set up a load of nucs, do you have sufficient bees at the moment to stock them adequately? Don’t forget a lot of the queen rearing you see on the Internet is commercial guys raising hundreds of queens a year. Nothing wrong with that, but the resources committed are proportionate to theIr desired outcome.

If your exceptional hive is already two years old and prolific it may well “gift” you a few spare swarm cells in just a few weeks time anyway? Let the bees do the work.

I wouldn’t worry about genetic diversity at this scale tbh.
 #10267  by Bobbysbees
 17 Mar 2021, 19:01
Thanks Patrick.
To clarify a little , my intention is to produce nucs. As well as requeening my hive from hell.
If I had an alternate location I.e somewhere rural I wouldn't bother requeening but as I'm stuck in town i feel somewhat indebted to my neighbors for putting up with my hobby. the last thing I need is any of them or worse their kids getting stung.
Numbers are pretty good but I was planning on giving it a month or 2 before attempting my first split. which for the sake of simplicity will be a walk away split. I just figured why waste good queens.
On a side note what if any rules are there around mail order queens and nucs. Can anyone do it or do you need a livestock export license ?
My second nuc was bought mail order and to say they were over priced is an understatement.
 #10284  by AdamD
 18 Mar 2021, 15:49
Here's one idea; For your plan to re-queen your agressive/defensive colony, yes you could do a walkaway split and then after a week, by which time there will be more brood emerging to feed larvae, remove anything that looks like a queencell and put in a frame of brood with eggs and small larvae from your good hive. Feed gently for a week (1/2 litre a day is more than enough) and you should then get some queencells. Don't do this before there is emerging drone brood as it will be too early in the season. I am assuming here that the defensive colony is manageable. (It will probably get worse as it gets bigger and a queenless colony can be less easy to handle).
 #10293  by Bobbysbees
 18 Mar 2021, 21:35
Thanks AdamD I may well do just that. As my aggressive/defensive is in a double deep while I left my nice hive on a single with a super on I should have plenty of bees to do a good job of drawing out the queen cells on the offered frame.
Is there any reason when they do draw out a few queen cells on the offered frame why I "shouldn't" then potentially split both the colonies thus doubling my stock (provided they draw enough cells that is) along with reducing the double deep down to a single?
As you say I will wait to see drone brood before I consider doing anything.
And I do know to ensure they are hopelessly queenless before offering a frame of eggs/brood
 #10294  by Chrisbarlow
 18 Mar 2021, 22:30
Don't worry about genetics, chances are there are many bee colonies near by.

I would try a walk away split in a poly nuc

3-4 frames in a nuc, seal them up for 7 days and then check them 6 weeks later. Include a frame of pollen, 1 honey, 1 open brood and 1 sealed brood.

Odds on, you'll have a laying queen. If you want more queens, repeat again
 #10297  by NigelP
 19 Mar 2021, 08:17
Worth bearing in mind that breeding from mongrel queens with good temper is not a guarantee of her offspring generating future gentle bees. Her daughters only need to mate with a single drone who activates aggression genes and you have a bad tempered colony. But its certainly worth trying because if the offspring are gentle no need to look further afield for good tempered queens.
Wish I was in that situation/wry grin/

Also worth bearing in mind that most nucs are quite good tempered, it's usually only when they become full blown colonies that any aggression tendencies starts to show through.
 #10298  by AdamD
 19 Mar 2021, 08:56
The double brood colony would split into several, once you have some queencells, so I would personally be inclined to leave the 'good' colony as it is and split down a difficult colony, and as Nigel says, it means that the aggression reduces. A nuc behaving badly is Ok to handle. A double brood colony that's perhaps lost it's queen could be a nightmare. It is always worth having an out-apiary site available to you if your neighbours start to get stung.
 #10300  by NigelP
 19 Mar 2021, 09:06
Yes, a second site become essential at some point. I house all my bad girls at one of mine and try and requeen them to decent temper. Alas , you sometimes get late supersedures generating queens whose offsprings temper leaves something to be desired.
Last year was a little strange as several hives with newly mated queens started off like the proverbial house on fire, then the queens quickly disappeared and new queen cells drawn within a few weeks of the new queen starting laying. It was weird as it doesn't usually happen like that, but was quite noticeable last year. Possibly poorly mated queens being replaced by the bees . We had atrocious summer weather for mating.
 #10303  by Bobbysbees
 19 Mar 2021, 16:40
Great advice guys thanks.
I have a converted Paynes nuc that I cut the feeder section out and made into an 8 frame with a corex divider board. The idea being to have a "chosen" queen to lift eggs/brood from on one side. Then drop the split into the other side and open the drilled rear enterance wheel so the 2 colonies can share heat. then I could just wash rinse and repeat till I have the desired number of nucs with laying mated queens all ready to build up and over winter to fill up my apiary?
I'm only into my second year but as I am disabled my intention is to get to a point of being self employed and I cant think of many other occupations that I would enjoy more.
I used to work as a shepherd and during this time of the year more or less lived outdoors in our wheeled bothy during the lambing.
I do miss it but at least I still have my shed as an escape from the world lol